Sunday, October 28, 2012

Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions

Title: Tiny Buddha, Simple Wisdom for Life's Hard Questions 
Author: Lori Deschene  
ISBN-13: 9781573245067
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Pages: 304

What happened when you crowd source the ultimate questions of life?  You get thousands of answers and eventually create a website (http://tinybuddha.com/) and write a book.  Deschene stated that she began the @tinybuddha feed because she wanted to teach people to simplify their complex lives, but in the process she learned more than what she was supposedly teaching - how to live in the moment, forgive and love herself, and lead a meaningful life.  She then took all of the wisdom she crowd sourced, did a little background reading and complied a book.

Deschene bares her soul to the reader - talking about her struggles as an adolescent, the disappointments in her life and silly decisions, all the while, trying to be a better version of herself.  Each section is focused on some of the big issues of life like money, love, happiness, meaning and relationships.  She introduces the chapter with her own experiences, what led her to ask the question and some of the actually Twitter replies.  

It is ironic that Deschene pokes fun at the self-help industry as she didn't find much solace in the numerous books she read, yet she provides a book to fuel the industry.  It is a quick read, and one that you can pick up whenever you have a few moments.  Although I didn't learn anything new, it was a good reminder to be intentional in setting and living my priorities rather than letting the minutia of life overwhelm me.

1 comment:

  1. As you've signed up for the *Tea & Books Reading Challenge* on my blog, here's just a little reminder that you've still got three more weeks to finish the challenge!
    Latest Update Post (plus Giveaway, yay) can be found here:
    http://the-book-garden.blogspot.com/2012/12/tea-books-reading-challenge-giveaway.html

    ReplyDelete